Review Summary

In the old days, we knew him as the Incredible Hulk, but the only thing incredible about this version is that is was made by Ang Lee and James Schamus, the minds behind "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The greatest failure of "The Hulk" is not the clumsy, ugly special effects. (As the angry green fellow hops through the desert, pursued by fighter jets, he looks more Claymation than computer-generated, and you half expect to see Wallace and Gromit in the cockpits.) Nor is it the witless writing or the hectic, inconsistent acting. Eric Bana's inertia is overcompensated by the trembling weepiness of Jennifer Connelly, who plays his soul mate, and the raving of Nick Nolte, as his dad, a mad scientist. These lapses would be forgivable if the filmmakers had found the right tone of pop seriousness to bring the hero and his story into focus. They seem to be at once taking the material too seriously and condescending to it, and they are too busy marveling at their own technique to make us care about the sufferings of the Hulk, who is finally not credible at all. — A. O. Scott